Sen. Joni Ernst has fired off letters to federal agencies demanding they prove they have shut down funding for EcoHealth Alliance after the Biden administration earlier this month suspended the firm from getting government grants.
EcoHealth was the conduit for U.S. taxpayer money to help sustain the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the lab many experts believe spawned the coronavirus pandemic. After years of pressure, the Health and Human Services Department said it has halted EcoHealth from accessing federal money and has taken steps to impose a more lasting bar.
But EcoHealth and the government disagree over the extent of the ban.
Ms. Ernst said she wants to make sure federal agencies are applying a total ban. The Iowa Republican also asked them to take stock of EcoHealth’s work to date.
“I am demanding proof all funding to EcoHealth has been canceled and the documentation about the dangerous pathogens EHA collected or created has all been collected,” Ms. Ernst said Wednesday in letters to the National Institutes of Health, the Defense Department, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
EcoHealth sent U.S. money to Wuhan for bat virus research. The company says it wasn’t funding gain-of-function experiments, which enhance viruses so they can be studied. But an inspector general said the experiments did show worrying growth that EcoHealth didn’t properly report to the U.S. government.
EcoHealth was also dinged for failing to get all the research data from the Wuhan lab, which means U.S. investigators are left with holes in the puzzle as they try to piece together the origins of COVID-19.
A week after banning money to EcoHealth, the Biden administration also banned the firm’s president, Dr. Peter Daszak, whom Ms. Ernst derided as the high priest of risky gain-of-function research on bat viruses.
That’s one leading explanation for the pandemic’s emergence, although many experts still believe the virus leaped from a wild animal to humans.
Dr. Daszak has taken to social media to denounce the moves against him and his firm.
“I want to remind everyone that we have not yet been given a chance to respond to allegations,” he wrote in one post over the weekend. “We will contest every one of them, with substantial evidence, both to the HHS & publicly.”
The House subcommittee investigating the pandemic replied that it has been asking for that evidence for more than a year, but Dr. Daszak hasn’t produced it.
“Respond to our requests now or face a subpoena,” the subcommittee wrote.
Ms. Ernst was particularly critical of government agencies that continued to send taxpayer money to EcoHealth after the pandemic broke out.
She said the firm has collected $60 million since March 2020, including funding for procuring bats for a bat virus research lab in Colorado.
The senator asked the four government agencies to detail exactly what funding they’ve given to EcoHealth, to confirm the money is now blocked, and to take inventory of the data EcoHealth provided for the research it has already done.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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